YouTube Premium has really tried to gain subscribers in the recent past, and in those attempts, the company has made some very strange choices in what features it actually has. One of the strangest omissions was the fact that you couldn’t download videos in resolutions greater than 720p, despite YouTube Premium enabling video downloading – considering downloads are only available on mobile devices. But YouTube will now allow you to download videos for offline viewing in 1080p as rollouts have started.
Android Police first spotted the update, and the company confirmed to multiple sources that the feature is rolling out to “most Premium markets,” with more to come.
For mobile devices with high-resolution displays, 1080p should be a significant upgrade, but this will obviously take a significant toll on your storage.
Although just as before, you’ll need to have a YouTube Premium subscription to download these videos in the first place.
It’s a small update that hasn’t arrived for everyone yet, but it adds a bit more value to the Premium subscription service.
If you didn’t already know, YouTube Premium subscribers get access to a number of neat perks and tools that aren’t available to regular YouTube viewers. Subscribers pay $12 per month for YouTube’s Premium subscription but are served no ads, can play videos in the background and even download videos locally to watch later.
The feature appears to be rolling out slowly through YouTube’s iOS and Android apps, so don’t be surprised if you haven’t yet seen it on your device, it’s only a matter of time. Make sure you’re running the latest version of the app before attempting a download.
As much as we will now be able to see the difference on phones with bigger screens and sharper resolutions, we must say that for some of us, 1080p won’t be enough, we’ll be awed once we can watch 8K on our 6-inch phone screens.